By Steven Goddard
[Update: See message from Professor North Below]
Some well known Aggie Jokes:
Did you hear about the Aggie who won a gold medal at the Olympics? He liked it so much that he decided to get it bronzed.
Did you hear about the Houston Cougar that transferred to A&M? He raised the IQ of both schools!
How many Aggies does it take to screw in a light bulb? One, but he gets 3 hours credit.
How do you get a Texas A&M graduate off your front porch? You pay for the pizza.
And here is the most recent Aggie joke. Check out this piece of work from the Texas A&M school newspaper.
Published: Tuesday, June 15, 2010
It is not just Texas; it is global. The rising temperatures that have afflicted the state are only part of a larger problem. Earth’s temperatures are rising at an alarming rate, rates unseen for thousands of years. “The warming that has occurred in the last 100 years seems to be very unusual,” said Gerald North, professor of atmospheric sciences and oceanography. “We do not see warming changes like that for 10,000 years. The rate at which it is going up has not stopped.”Even though the global rise in temperature is small, 3 degrees Celsius over a period of 100 years, the implications of such warming are large. “3 degrees Celsius is about 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit, and if you ask most people, they would say that it does not sound like very much,” said Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric sciences and oceanography. “If you look at the global average temperature, it really varies a small amount.”
Every fact and statistic quoted are suspect. According to NCDC, Texas has not warmed over the last 90 years, or the last 110 years.
Next up is their claim that global temperatures have risen by 3C in the last 100 years. Even Hansen’s bloated numbers only show 0.8C in the last 130 years.
NCDC shows the same thing, only less.
HadCrut shows less than one degree rise over the last 150 years.
The authors seem to be confusing IPCC estimates for the next hundred years, with measurements from the last hundred years – which is clearly the context of that paragraph.
Then they go on to claim that summer temperatures have increased in Texas.
Global climate changes are having equal effect on Texas‘ climate, which is part of the reason for the increased temperatures over the summers.
According to NCDC, Texas summer temperatures are dropping:
And finally :
“Texas temperatures are going up pretty much like the earth’s temperatures are,” North said. “Generally speaking, the global average temperature changes about the same as in Texas, so it is probably going to be warmer in Texas in the next 50 to 100 years. Last summer was a really hot summer, and while I say that is a fluctuation, it does probably indicate things that we might expect in the next 20 or 30 years. And what you can expect in the next 50 years is that the heat we experienced last summer is going to be the average summer temperature.”
Not one shred of evidence to support that statement. If NCDC trends continue, summers will be cooler in 50 years in Texas. Now, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are only thinking about their little part of Texas. The closest USHCN station to College Station is in Brenham.
According to USHCN, Brenham was warmer 100 years ago.
One might expect that professors of atmospheric science would have access to the Internet, and would be able to look these things up for themselves – before presenting information to their students. Looks like another bad Aggie joke.
[Update: Professor North responded to an email from one of our commenters, James Allison, and stated this:
“Please correct the false impression left on your website. The item in the Texas A&M student newspaper was based on short interviews by phone. While there was no error in fact, the impression left is false. In the interview with me, I was referring to the temperature changes of our planet over the last century (about 0.7 deg C). The author switched abruptly to an interview with Professor Andrew Dessler who was not talking about the temperature over the LAST century but instead the IPCC prediction for temperature over the NEXT century (averaging over models about 3 deg C). I would not have known about this error except that my email box has been unusually loaded with hate mail today.
Gerald North”]
He liked it so much that he decided to get it bronzed.
Yes, in defense of the soccer announcer, when a soccer ball is kicked in a specific manner one can produce amazing spin. There’s something called the Magnus Effect (forgive me, it’s been a long time since high school) that deals with spinning objects and their effective curving motion. I’ve played soccer (poorly) and have been fooled many times by a well-kicked, spinning, curving ball that was moving faster than it seemed. That is, as the ball came nearer my human senses suddenly discovered they’d miscalculated the speed at which the trajectory was being manifested. This effect has also fooled me in baseball. As the ball curves and begins to come towards the plate it has the illusion of increasing in speed. Obviously nothing looks faster than a pitcher’s best fast ball! But an off-speed (slow ball) pitch can truly make even the best batters look foolish. My experience is that it’s hard to accurately judge speeds of curving objects, especially those hurling past you. Human frailty. I got it, too.
Assuming that North and Dressler knew what was going to be printed, which is a good bet.
Then you have to assume that North and Dressler can not even do some simple, basic fact checking on their own work.
And these two bozos are both professors of atmospheric sciences and oceanography.
I did fix the typos/spell check before I sent it to the professor 🙂
With apologies to Claude Rains: I am shocked, shocked that Aggie jokes are going on here.
Green Sand
The announcer was a Brit, and I think you are correct – the terminology he used was “gathered pace” rather than my paraphrased use of “accelerated.”
If balls “gathered pace” on their way down the pitch, it would make sense to have shots taken by the goalkeeper – at the opposite end. By the time the ball had traveled 100 metres, the other keeper would be taking his life in his hands by stepping in front of it.
This is slightly tangential to the topic here but I have often wondered if this belief by some that things are “so much hotter now than it used to be” is not caused by the fact that the majority of current generations have grown up in nicely climate controlled buildings and vehicles.
It amazes me how many people, on a 65 degrees Fahrenheit morning, will arrive at work having run their cars A/C the entire commute… and then complain about gas prices.
Have people simply become acclimatized to the 68 – 72 Fahrenheit and very low humidity in door climate? So much so that they are easily convinced that the normal outside weather is abnormal?
Also from the article:
“For example, in the last ice age there was 3000 feet of ice over Boston, the oceans were 300 feet lower than they are today and that was five to eight degrees Celsius cooler than it is today,” [Dessler] said. “So if you lower the global temperature five to eight degrees Celsius, which is about 12 degrees Fahrenheit, you end up with an ice age.”
Ken Hall says:
June 17, 2010 at 6:39 am
I am from England so I do not ‘get’ the Aggie angle. Would this be the same University that was featured in the Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds movie, The best little whorehouse in Texas?
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Yes it is the same University. Because it has a large number of farmers/ranchers getting Agricultural degrees, it is the butt of a lot of jokes. Farmers are seen as very stupid. Even the US department of Ag recommends addressing farmers at the sixth grade level, that is as if they were 12 years old.
dave ward says:
June 17, 2010 at 7:01 am
Don’t worry about a little warming – us “Poms” are going to kill off most of our cows, and become a “Zero Carbon” economy with in 20 years….
http://tinyurl.com/26vcmbw
I foolishly downloaded the full report, and nearly had a coronary:
http://www.zerocarbonbritain.com.
_____________________________________________________________________
Now you know why the World Trade Organization has been trying to get all countries to tag and track their livestock… so they can kill most of the domestic animals off.
As a graduate of Texas A&M, I have to say that even on campus, the Battalion (the school newspaper) was a joke. Minimal wikipedia and “I saw it on the internet, it must be true” research was the norm.
That being said, the physics department was excellent, and for the most part, politics were kept out of the (physics) classroom.
Oh, and I do love a good Aggie joke. You’ve heard of some of their recent inventions? Like the solar-powered flashlight, or the parachute that opens on impact?
Bambam
That is one of the best ones I’ve heard! LOL
David T. Bronzich, most A&M students are from out of state? Waa?? There are more students at A&M from Texas than the total combined student populations of UNT and SMU. This ain’t the 50’s anymore.
And I’d like to say that while Gerry may teach at A&M, he holds no degree from the school, and I wish to heck he’d find somewhere else to teach.
Gerry North was a great physics professor 37 years ago when I was his student, but he has most recently been consulting for wind turbine companies, which might have biased his viewpoint.
A Sea Turtle makes its first contribution to YouTube
As an Englishman, I didn’t recognise the term Aggie (since looked up on the web) and thought you must be using a new term for Anthropogenic Global Warmists. The jokes made even more sense on this basis!
Let’s see if Prof. North deigns to respond on this thread.
Bets, anyone?
/Mr Lynn
just remember,
TAMU is one of the largest educational institutions in the world. the presence of a couple of profs like north and dessler amongst the faculty should be expected out of its sheer size. considering the size (and planned growth) of the nuclear engineering program, having a couple of folks like north and dessler are valuable in distracting the kook elements from continued protests against nuclear power.
as for the lightbulb – i’m surprised no one got that one yet. It’s 500 aggies. One to hold the lightbulb and 499 to rotate the house.
” The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley says:
June 17, 2010 at 7:11 am
Wouldn’t it be a good idea (or does this already exist) if there was an independent web site – and I mean independent in the way that no beliefs were held on AGW – which simply presented ALL the ‘facts’ we know about temperature changes.”
Ole Humlum tries to do that:
http://www.climate4you.com/
Hey, its a school newspaper. What else would you expect from a budding young journalist? Gayle Gabreiel is clearly on track to become a great reporter, since she found someone to interview who already agreed with her own biases, asked puff questions, did no original research on her own, intended her article to support existing prejudices and provided no valuable information in the process! This is what passes for first rate journalism these days in all our papers and media.
I do not care what school or university this comes from. Not fair to single out Texas A&M for what modern day journalism has become. This young woman is clearly on the way to plum job at the N.Y. Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, CBS/NBC/ABC/CNN or similar (soon to be taxpayer supported) media organizations. After all, she can’t possibly be wrong to write a piece which supports the existing consensus, right?
” Green Sand says:
June 17, 2010 at 7:50 am
That’s a new one Steven, the one we are treated to in virtually every game in the UK is “the ball gathered pace off the pitch”? ”
When the grass is wet (and it always is in England), the ball jumps up from the ground at a flatter angle; the horizontal component of the velocity vector may be bigger (or at least bigger than the player expected).
Looks like North found someone as credulous as he to write up his silly nonsense.
Clearly the person interviewing the scientists is rather dumb. He seems to have not understood that the 3 degrees Celsius figure derives from a projection of future change!
But the scientists are also making claims which are just ridiculously wrong. The Texas Summers one is the easiest to show is wrong.
Earthquakes are somewhat frequent in the Cleveland area. A new post on Cleveland, Ohio earthquake history can be found at Scott Sabol’s World of Science and Weather.
http://sabolscience.blogspot.com
stevengoddard says:
June 17, 2010 at 8:20 am
Explains why all these major games are played in stadiums with high sides?
stevengoddard says:
June 17, 2010 at 8:20 am
Also wish my golf ball would “gather pace off the fairway”. Might make 250yds, in my dreams!